2/28 Blog Post

The readings on the Scottsboro boys are particularly reminiscent of Ida B. Wells’ On Lynchings in the sense that they all present and challenge the institutional and cultural racism that encourages false rape accusations and prioritizes the word of the white woman. Gilmore’s piece even puts forth the idea that trials for black men of the early twentieth century could be “lynchings in disguise,” meaning that those accused are not given a chance at genuine acquittal but instead serve as a public stripping of humanity and rights. I found it interesting that the case served as a tool for political gain and tension; the communists used the cause to “build contacts with northern white liberals and a few white Southerners” as well as to establish a “recruiting strategy among African Americans.” Though their involvement with the case seems rooted more in their party’s own self-interest than out of any genuine concern for the specific and ongoing injustice of the accusations, the attention the communist party drummed up for the case catalyzed a shift in the way such rape cases were discussed. Gilmore points out that “before Scottsboro, white Southerners used deliberately vague and suggestive language to discuss the crime of black on white rape” which “blurred the facts of the case and licensed white imagination to run wild.” Through using straightforward language in the Scottsboro trials, the white Southern public was forced to confront the subjects of the supposed crime in a way that did not hyperbolize or bias the situation. Despite this confrontation, however, all nine of the accused boys suffered at the hands of blatant injustice. They were not recognized as innocent or victims of their situation; they were used as political momentum. Their defense was not honored; it was their lives up against the panicked words of two white women.